A nation is traumatized.
In a frenzy of immorality, instigated through the counsel of Bilaam, the Moabite women not only seduce the general populace to debauchery, but Zimri in a shocking act of brazenness takes his paramour, a Midianite woman, to the entrance of the Tent of Assembly sinning with her in public. This resulted in a plague that kills twenty-four thousand people in one fell swoop.
The plague was stifled only after Pinchos zealously takes action to kill Zimri and Cozbi.
In reward for his courageous act in 'turning back' G-d's wrath from the Children of Israel, he is rewarded a 'covenant of peace', and that he and his descendants will merit to be 'Kohanim forever'.
Can an act of a single individual possibly atone for a communal sin and quell the consequence of that act that otherwise might have decimated the entire nation?
When facing any traumatic moment of challenge in life there are generally three instinctive reactions.
Fight – to react with anger. Flight — to escape and ignore the issue. Freeze — becoming paralyzed and disconnected. Fawn — to avoid the distress one seeks to please and avoid conflict.
The Torah reports at the end of the previous portion how Pinchos reacted to this traumatic moment.
וירא פינחס — He observed — he contemplated the situation rather than 'blindly' react in anger.
ויקם — and he stood up, מתוך העדה — from amid the assembly.
ויקח — and took, רמח בידו — a spear in his hand.
Trauma transpires when we experience very stressful, frightening or distressing events that are difficult to cope with or out of our control.
In a clear parallel the Torah depicts the secret to Pinchos' success in quashing the effects of trauma that effect those unequipped to get emotionally bruised.
He Observed. He didn't reflexively fight back but strategized what response was warranted in such a situation. He never let the trauma 'control' him and disturb his equilibrium.
He stood up. He didn't flee the challenge.
From amid the assembly. He certainly did not fawn on others in pursuit of avoidance of conflict, on the contrary he stood up to the taunts of those who questioned his worthiness as a true zealot.
A spear in his hand. This emphasis of his taking it בידו — in his hand, alludes to his readiness to act and not become paralyzed in the face of challenge.
Every נסיון — test in life we face can potentially be traumatic.
When we live with assumptions that are suddenly challenged, we lose our balance, wondering what will do now, how will we go on.
For a servant of G-d, there is no past, nor future, only the present and its summons to greatness, bringing us closer to G-d when we select to rise to the occasion.
The Torah describes Pinchos' moment of truth when he decides 'to see, stand up amid the assembly, and take the spear in his hand'.
In Psalms it recounts this episode and depicts it differently.
ויעמוד פנחס — And arose did Pinchos, ויפלל — and prayed, and halted was the plague. (קו ל)
The Talmud explains, עשה פלילות עם קונו — he wrought judgments with his Creator. (סנהדרין פב:)
This seems to indicate that Pinchos debated with G-d.
Is it prayer or was it a judicial debate?
How do we reconcile this notion with the Torah's portrayal of his courageous response?
The word התפלל — to pray, comes from the root פלל, which in turn is related to the root בלל… which denotes bringing a fresh element into a mass, incorporating this element into all parts of the mass, and thus forming a new material out of the mass.
This is the Jewish concept of the judge’s task, [and it is for this reason that the verb פלל means 'to judge']. The judge must bring justice and fairness, which are elements of Divine Truth, into the case. This must penetrate all elements of the dispute. Therefore, by bringing true justice into what was angry dissension, the judge transforms it into harmonious unity.
When one does this to himself, he is said to התפלל, that is, 'to judge himself'. התפלל means to take the element of G-d’s truth and make it penetrate all phases and conditions of our being and our lives. This allows our entire being to gain a degree of harmony in G-d.
Jewish tefillah [prayer; a noun from the same root as התפלל] is hence very different from what is usually conceived of as prayer. It is not an expression from within, or an expression of that with which the heart is already filled. Rather, it is a renewal and penetration of truth which comes from the outside.
If our prayers were not tefillah … working on our inner selves to bring them to the heights of recognition of the truth and to resolutions for serving God, then there would be no sense in having fixed times and prescribed forms for them. But our prescribed prayers are not facts and truths of which we are already conscious; they are concepts which we wish to awaken and renew in ourselves. The less one may feel inclined to recite a prayer, the more necessary it may be to say it.
This brilliant notion of prayer proposed by Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch, I believe, resolves our dilemma.
Prayer is the process by which we work through every situation we face by figuring out what is the Divine will vis a vis my personal mission and responsibility to promote that will.
The process of self-judging before G-d is פלל, the implementation was ויקח — when Pinchos mindfully dispatched that will with great discipline and purpose.
As we head into the period of the 'Three Weeks', reliving the many traumas our nation has endured over the millennia we must not fall into the trap of anger, escape, paralysis, and accommodation.
We must grab the horns of our traumas turning them into moments of opportunity for growth, transforming ourselves with this process as purveyors of G-d's will, reaching new heights of greatness.
באהבה,
צבי יהודה טייכמאן
